The argument for being a natural born killer (and not a vegetarian)
We are all slaves to nature in different ways, writes poet and artist Frieda Hughes
CARNIVORE
The two good-looking men towered over my younger self.
Our conversation was driving us apart
As if our differences were insurmountable.
I could see them drifting off inside their heads
As if it was something I said. Devout, their conviction
Demanded that meat eaters should be more panda,
Chewing bamboo instead of each other and vegetarians.
I argued that tigers would starve, snakes would shrivel,
Wolves would turn on each other getting thinner and thinner,
Penguin-less, whales would sink to the ocean floor,
Foxes would waste away without a chicken dinner,
And rabbits would over-breed without a carnivore
To nibble down their numbers.
They said they couldn’t stay,
And I forgot them until now, as I step over my threshold
To see a cranefly struggling. At first, I couldn’t understand
The smaller reason for its immobility, but there it was,
A little spider, reeling in its bigger catch, a leg at a time,
No more able to avoid the eating of other insects
Then it could stop being a spider.